One can just keep soaking in his paintings and yet not get enough of them. The artist we are talking about is Chicago-based veteran artist SV Rama Rao who hasa career spanning over six decades. Raoreceived the Padma Shri Award in 2001 and is an abstract painter of global repute.Now, Rao is being honored at South Asian University (SAU), Delhi, in association with Art Life Gallery with an exhibition of his paintings titled “Tribute to a Living Master” on the college campus. The show was inaugurated by Rao himself along with SAU’s president Kavita Sharma.The exhibition also pays homage to recently-deceased former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam who inaugurated Rao’s first ever solo exhibition in India in 2013 at Dhoomimal Gallery in the capital.Talking about his paintings on display, Pratibha Agarwal, the curator of the show, says, “Rao relives his dreams on canvas. In the present series of abstracts, he shows a musical performance entwining the perennial water of rivers, the everlasting glow of the divine light on the waves of the rivers and the ethereal wind playing a colorful eternal dance.”Sharma believes that opening the session with an art show is a pleasant and cheerful beginning.Rao, who was the only Indian artist to be invited to participate in the international “Alphabet of Modern Art” exhibition,featuring Picasso, Braque, Miro, Dali, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock and other eminent artistsof the modern movement, has invented his own style of oil painting. Explaining his paintings, he says, “My paintings are based on meadows, clouds, mountains, skies with tinges and two dimensions. I visualize my paintings as if I am gazing at the earth flying in the sky. The soothing sight of water from the sky is remarkable, as I see with my spiritual eyes.”One of the elements he has used in his paintings is water, as if water evaporates into thin air only to be merged with a cloud to claim its authority over land as a downpour. He says he has never used white in his paintings and that is his way of controlling the paper but “using black was equally difficult; it’s used profusely to give depth to other colors. The Persian blue and crimson lake colors combined together give the feeling of golden clouds during the sun set.”The second element used is air where he portrays the two aspects of breathing in and breathing out and how air eternally remains around silently while a storm and breeze can be felt. Both, sudden flow and calm can be seen in his paintings.Fire is the third element that he depicts in his works. A believer of Hindu mythology, he asserts how fire is one of the eight elements that guards the universe. “Again, it has eternal and perishable elements and it’s important to see the little flames spread across in the works,” he says.Rao is a regular exhibitor at prestigious galleries like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Fogg Art Museum in Massachusetts, The National Art Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand, and private galleries like Sir Herbert Read, Lord Croft and Dr. Grace Morley, among others. Talking about the exhibition, Sharma says, “This is a trend we want to continue with. An art show in the university gives a good feeling to the students who have come from the SAARC nations. They come across the art and culture of India through such shows and talk about it. I believe that art can change a person’s mind and soul and that is why when I came here I asked to prepare a portion of the porch for art shows. This is the third show the university is having. Before this, we had two earlier shows.”“Tribute to a Living Master” is on view till August 12 at South Asian University, Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.Follow @ARTINFOIndia
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